


Promise?

by nana_banana



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Egypt, Children, Citronshipping, Confessions that are not really confessions, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Malik Ishtar is Bad at Feelings, Orphans, Thief King Bakura is Bad at Feelings, Thiefshipping, implied sexual relationship, staying together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24766648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nana_banana/pseuds/nana_banana
Summary: Bakura, the Thief King, is one who flees.  He's a thief, first and foremost, and he will always get away by the skin of his teeth.  He lives to steal another day.  He's a rat who scurries, a bastard of a man.  And when he looks upon those pale eyes of Malik, he can feel the noose tightening around his neck.  Yet, he doesn't run.  Not this time.  Maybe not at all.
Relationships: Thief King Bakura/Marik Ishtar, Yami Bakura/Marik Ishtar
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Nana's Twitter Prompts





	Promise?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alistairVT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alistairVT/gifts).



> I received [this prompt](https://twitter.com/LadyPhoenixJade/status/964333602224816128?s=20) two years ago, but like better late than never, right? (I'm legit still working on another one.)
> 
> Sorry, alistairVT. Idk if you're still around, but here this is. I'm also p sure neither of us expected this prompt to go this way (it's barely what you asked for), but I hope you like it. (Also, I hope you like TKB bc I adore him.)

“Oh yeah?”

The arid wind blew past him, ruffling his short, white hair. Lowering himself to eye level of the three-year-old child before him, he let the threatening words roll off his tongue as easily as sand through his sandals. The sun was high in the sky, shining down with a vengeance. On one side of the courtyard, lingering in the shadows of the open-air corridor, a priestess of Bast stood, watching like a stoic guardian. She did not intervene. 

“Wanna run that by me again?” He asked lowly, his rough voice icy and amused. “Go ahead. Say it.” 

“Your hair is old,” said the child easily, as if he was not currently being stared down by a beast of a man with a scar on his face and a nasty sneer of a smile. “Like a grandpa's.” 

“You know what I did to the last guy who said something like that to me,” the man said to the child, and the child tilted their head to the side. 

“No,” they said innocently but with open curiosity. “What did you do?” 

“I,” the man slowly said, “tickled him!” He attacked then, stretching out his arms and dancing them over the child's belly. 

The child squealed with laughter before the fingers even touched them and they doubled over, dancing their tiny feet on the ground. Around them, a dozen children let out peals of laughter, jumping up and down as they clapped their hands excitedly. 

With a great swoop, the man lifted the child into his arms and stood, turning in a circle with his momentum. The child screamed with joy, and he grinned as he came to a stop. 

“Had enough?” He demanded. 

“No!” Yelled the child, shaking his tiny arms. “More!” 

“'No', he says!” Cried the man, incredulous. 

“My turn, my turn!” Screamed the children surrounding them, waving their short arms as they crowded the man who took a tentative step back. He raised his eyebrows at the jumping kids and tossed the child he held over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, holding them by their legs. The child giggled, wildly waving their arms in glee. 

“I don't think I have enough arms,” the man said to the group at large and several kids pouted at his answer. 

They looked between them, each sharing a message with just a glance. By the time the last kid had shared the same thought, they all turned to the man in unison, each with a strange glint in their eye. 

“What are you brats thinking?” He asked menacingly, and they all grinned, like hyenas at the smell of blood in the air. 

“Attack!” Shouted one at the rear of the group and that was all the warning the man received before he was tackled by a good fifteen little bodies. 

Down he went like a sack of potatoes, the child on his shoulder rolling away with a cackle. The children grabbed at him and tickled, and he squirmed, a startled bark of laughter leaving him as he fought to extract himself from the pile. 

“Wait!” He protested, struggling to regain composure. “Get off me, y — HAHA! Stop that! I demand releas — HA!” He managed to get a foot under him and pushed himself away, back dragging against the hot earth. But the children pursued, squealing in delight. 

“Get him!” They screeched. “Get the Thief King!” 

“Yeah, get him!” Yelled a voice so frighteningly familiar, that the sound of it conjured the image of a sneering blonde in his mind's eye. One with pale eyes and smooth, tan skin over every inch of his body. The very blood in the thief king's veins froze. 

He twisted out of reach of grabby hands, leaping to his feet in an instant much to the disappointed groans of various children. Whirling around, his pale eyes fell upon a similar gray, the owner of which was smirking in absolute glee. The sneer around his lips was familiar, and he often saw it in the middle of the night, waiting for him on the other side of a door when he was weak enough to succumb to his bodily urges and pay the visit. 

“Why, hello there, Bakura,” said the tall blonde standing next to the pillar closest to the door that led out of the courtyard and into the receiving chamber of the temple of Bast. “Isn't this a delight?” His gaze moved to the priestess loitering in the corner, but she paid him no mind. When he looked back to Bakura, his shoulders lowered, losing tension. 

Bakura's heart was racing. Because his secret, the one he kept so close to his chest, had just been discovered. 

“Who knew you had a heart?” Continued the man still standing at the pillar, arms crossed. His tone was strange, a little soft where the edges were usually a knife ready to slit through his throat. And strangely, his eyes gentled, none of the combative ridicule that Bakura was used to receiving within them. 

“Who said I did?” Bakura retorted, hardening his features even as his skin buzzed with alarm, crawling at him to get _away,_ an itch to _run_ that burned through him. “What are you doing here?” He barked, expression scowling as he tried to hide his panic. 

“I volunteer here with the children,” replied the man with a shrug, as if they often said those things easily between them, revealing bits and pieces of their souls. Baring parts of their lives for one another as if it was just another day and not the most frightening thing Bakura could think of. 

The man's smile slipped a little. 

“You didn't tell me you were in town,” he said, like an admission of something else. An expectation Bakura had never had to meet. One that had never been expected of him. 

Bakura moved then, swerving through the veritable sea of silent, confused children, feeling the tension between the men but unaware of what it meant. When he finally waded out of it, they reacted, letting out sounds of bewilderment and disappointment. 

“You're leaving?” Asked one. 

“No, stay!” Pleaded another. 

“I have to go,” Bakura said gruffly, trying not to look at their hurt little faces. 

“But why?” Asked a small one, sniffling. 

But Bakura was already past the man, shoving into the quiet of the temple, heading down its halls for the side door that would lead him to his horse so he could get the hell out of there. He did not encounter any of the priestesses, thankfully, and he made it to the outer corridor without issue. It was just when he spotted his waiting horse that a presence made itself known. 

A warm hand curled around Bakura's bicep, and he turned, snarling and already yanking a hidden dagger from his belt, only to pause when met with the somber expression of the newcomer. The familiar arrogance was nowhere to be seen. And that, more than anything, unsettled him deeply. His hold on the dagger loosened before it gripped even tighter. 

“Don't run off,” said the man, his grip tight, as if he could keep Bakura there with him with the strength of his slim fingers alone. “Please.” 

“Malik,” Bakura scoffed, uncertain. 

He glanced around, for he was infamous, and though the priesteses of Bast were prepared to look the other way, others were not so kind. But there was one around, and Bakura returned his attention to Malik alone. He tucked the dagger away before the other could see it. His stomach churned. Because this was something new, something weird. They did not do this. These heartfelt pleas and emotionally-charged scenes. They bickered and scoffed and pretended to look the other way when the other smiled without irony. They hid from each other, even when they were as close as two people could get. 

And even in those instances, in private where Malik was bare as the day he was born, he had never worn such an open expression. Not for Bakura, who was always just passing through. He had never seen such a look, so vulnerable and beseeching. 

So _honest._

“I have things to do,” Bakura ground out. 

“Like what?” Malik scoffed. “Breaking into a dead king's tomb?” He sneered. 

And _that_ was more like it. It was mapped territory that Bakura knew how to navigate. 

“Forget it,” Malik requested. “Just stay.” His expression twisted into something more earnest. It seemed painful, like his face did not quite know how to settle into it. “Please.” 

He said that so _easily._

“What are you doing?” Bakura said quietly, roughly. His throat was dry and it clicked when he swallowed. His heart was palpitating in his chest like a trapped bird, frantic to get free. He wanted nothing more than to shake off Malik's arm and flee like, well, _a thief in the night._ He could do it, too. Break away from Malik's grip which was not very strong at all. Not as strong as he. He could twist away, hop onto his horse, and vanish into the desert. There was no reason to stay there, in Malik's hold, looking into those eyes that asked too much of him. “Malik —” 

“You know what I'm doing,” Malik said flatly. The vulnerability remained. 

“We don't do this,” Bakura said tightly, chest struggling under the weight of Malik's pale eyes. 

“This” being emotions, feelings, innermost desires — they did not do that. Bakura was not like that. He was there and gone. He had thought Malik had understood that. That they had an agreement. 

_“You_ don't do this,” Malik corrected. “But I'm asking you. Stay.” His hand gentled on his arm, and still, Bakura did not tear away. 

“Why?” Bakura stubbornly asked. His skin was itching, but he knew if he scratched he could not sate it. Because the itch was not there. It was inside him, in his very bones. 

“Because one day you'll go into one of those tombs,” Malik said quietly, “and you won't come out.” He stepped closer. “Because one day the king's guards will catch up to you. Because — because I'm _asking_ you to.” His other hand came up, curling over his shoulder, over a scar Malik had once mapped with his tongue in the dead of night, when his sister was asleep in the next room, completely unaware. “So stay.” 

Bakura stared at Malik. He looked into that gaze that was cracked open like a tomb, revealing the treasures within, and he considered it. Against everything he believed, he thought about it. He thought about staying, about returning to the children, about heading to the tavern later that evening, _with_ Malik, and waiting for him to wake with the dawn. Debated staying to see his eyelids flutter, breath catching and resuming with ease, eyes blearily looking into his own before they cleared and a smile spread across his lips. He thought about the sunrise that would be visible from Malik's window if he stayed long enough to see it, rather than absconding before first light. 

And the itch in the marrow of his bones waned. Because it was not a clawing need to go, as he had previously believed. 

It was a desire to stay. 

His body grew taut with dismay. 

“I don't like kids,” Bakura blurted, the tenseness in his shoulders refused to leave him at the revelation. It settled over him like a vice, and he felt like he could not breathe. His breaths were shallow and harsh, and Malik's hold was like a trap holding him down. 

He felt naked and afraid. He, who did not even flinch at a sword in his face. He, who grinned at danger and skirted it with a laugh. 

“Sure you don't,” Malik scoffed. His hands fell from his shoulder and bicep, his mouth twisting into something Bakura recognized far more. “That's why I saw you playing with them like some softhearted sap. I bet you'd bend over backwards for them if they asked.” 

The trap loosened, and Bakura breathed a little easier. 

“I can show you a softhearted sap,” Bakura threatened with a glower, no heat behind it. 

“Oh, I'm sure,” Malik ridiculed with a smirk. He stepped back, tossing him a roll of his eyes before turning away entirely. “The great thief king can be defeated by mere children, who would have known?” 

The trap was gone, and Bakura felt lighter than he ever had. 

Malik walked away, heading back into the temple proper, and Bakura followed, feeling like he was walking on air, though there was gritty sand between his toes and his robes had seen better days, dusty and filthy from rolling around in the dirt. 

Grabbing Malik, he pressed him up into the wall just inside, baring his teeth at him. To his vexation and delight, Malik did not even flinch. Instead he pressed into his hold more firmly, body arching into him in welcome. 

“Oh, you better believe I can,” Bakura hissed. “I'll show you exactly how ruthless I can be.” 

A smile smoothed Malik's lips, infuriating and alluring as ever, as he whispered, “Promise?” 

And for once, Bakura did. 

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Two bros chillin in a hot tub five feet apart bc they're not IN LOVE (only they totally are)
> 
> Twitter: [@nanadanonini](https://twitter.com/nanadanonini)
> 
> Tumblr: [@floreswrites](https://floreswrites.tumblr.com/)


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